The Villain (2009) poster
2009 · comedy · heist

The Villain

Directed by Albert Dupontel1h 26m2009
ElsewhereIMDb6.42k
  • warm
  • kinetic
  • gentle
Movie DNA

Warm, breathless, gentle comedy / heist, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

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With gun-toting rivals on his tail, a daring bank robber takes refuge in the quiet residential street here he grew up and where his mother, Maniette, still lives. An unscrupulous property developer, Korazy, is buying up the neighborhood to turn it into a gleaming new banking district, but to her son's disgust Maniette leads the inhabitants resistance. Her ingenious methods provoke her boy's admiration, but he fights back with sneaky traps and underhand tricks when Maniette tries to force him to do the right thing just once in his life.

Our read · The Villain (2009) reads as a warm, breathless, inventive comedy · heist entry — gentle in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of The Villain

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want quirky French comedy of a bank robber hiding with his activist mom.

ends warmyou’ll be fine aftersteady all the waygrips by minute 6attention 3/5breezes bysubtitles: full
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightSkip if slapstick French farce and neighborhood subplots feel scattered.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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